


can you make it stop if i tell you i need you?

by juggyjones



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Baggage, Raven is a Mechanic, Zeke is a Pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggyjones/pseuds/juggyjones
Summary: It takes Raven over a year to admit her feelings, and even that is after Zeke almost dies. She thought she was okay with losing him, but there is nothing worse.





	can you make it stop if i tell you i need you?

**Author's Note:**

> this is really emotional, so prepare for it

A mechanic falling in love with a pilot is very dumb, in Raven’s opinion, because even though they’re supposed to be a team, one will always be trying to outsmart the other.

There’s just no middle ground.

(Raven thinks this is, actually, part of the reason why she fell for Zeke in the first place.)

Sometimes, something would be wrong with the engine and he’d come to her office, leaning against the doorframe with the coolest smirk on his face, and tell her what’s wrong with it. He’d be dressed in full pilot’s outfit, or co-pilot’s if he wanted to take some easier jobs, and the uniform made him look older and more mature than he really was.

His hair would always be near a buzzcut, short and dark and it would be yet another thing making him look older when he’s really just her age.

(But they’re both way smarter than average for their age, hence why they’re where they are, so young.)

She likes the look of the uniform on him. It suits his well-fit body, covers all the muscle she knows is there (because one time, he tried to stop oil from leaking and got all covered in it and had to wear just a wife beater until he got a new uniform.) It contrasts his young face in an odd way, and it might be his dark complexion that makes the sharpness of his features stand out, or how everything about him was in comforting shades of brown, except his lips that have a slight pinkish tint to them.

When she’d see him leaning against the doorframe with that smirk, she’d smirk right back and correct whatever he said, because it’s always wrong. She’d follow him out of the office in her oil-stained jean overalls and a beige top underneath, and he’d always make a comment about one or two new stains on her ‘uniform’. They’d get to the plane, she’d look at it and diagnose it with sharp eyes and a witty mouth, all while looking at him knowing full well he knows exactly what’s wrong with the plane, but likes to pretend he doesn’t just so he’d see that winning grin on her face.

And she’d leave, strutting away from him, she’d get her best mechanics and they’d get to work and she’d get yet another stain or two that make her uniform lively, knowing he’s watching somewhere. And she’d pat him on the back when she’s done, wishing him a good flight, and he’s smile at her and thank her for fixing it.

Sometimes, when he’d have a short time in-between flights and she’d just have her lunch break, they’d go get something together at one of the airport restaurants. Other times, they’d just get take-out and watch some episodes from comedy TV shows, or watch movies where planes are involved and discuss how inaccurate they are, all while Raven’s office smells like Chinese food or whatever they’re eating that day.

That’s how they function, day to day for almost a year. 

(It’s a routine, and Raven sometimes lies about her lunch break just so she could spend more time with him, even if she’d never admit it.)

She doesn’t know when she fell in love with him, exactly. She realized it some time ago, when he came into her office, drenched in sweat and said they had to have an emergency landing because one of the turbines malfunctioned mid-flight. Raven ran out to fix it, got drenched in pouring rain, and he waited for her with a hot cup of cocoa, fresh clothes while wearing one of her biggest sweaters and sweatpants that almost resembled yoga pants on him, and watching Brooklyn 99.

There was also takeout from an airport restaurant, her favourite dish. They watched a few more episodes and then he talked about what happened and how stressful it was, and she talked about how she almost didn’t know how to fix it, and she realized that she knew he’d be in here, waiting for her, wanting to listen to her rambles and she could open up about knowing she’s not as good at her job as she wishes she could be, and he can do the same.

(It’s not that Raven doesn’t have other friends who’d listen. It’s just that Zeke is in the same line of work, and they need each other to keep people flying from one place to another, and there’s a different kind of understanding he can offer that no one else can.)

But again, Raven is not the type of person who feels the need to take their relationship to a new level when what they have is more than enough. She knows she loves him and she knows she adores their teasing, so she sees no point in admitting it when she gets the support she needs without having to.

(Who cares about the kisses and making out when you can have someone who’d bring you hot cocoa and spend a horrible period of their day with you, making you feel like you’re the only thing they need?)

A little over a year in their friendship-partnership, Zeke’s non-fixing-related visits to Raven become rarer, until they almost stop altogether. Even when he visits, it feels like he’s wishing to be somewhere else, and he doesn’t stay for long, and Raven feels like she’s lost something.

When he comes for the repairs, his smirk isn’t so playful and he looks like there’s somewhere else he’d rather be, and rarely stays in her office, waiting for her. When he has a bad day again and she has to fix the turbines again, she finds her office empty and cold and quiet when she comes, drenched in sweat and oil and smelling like a car-repair shop.

She sees him less, and less. He barely speaks to her. His visits become even less frequent than they were by the time it’s a little over six months he’s been distancing himself from her, they’re almost strangers. Raven has several bad days in a row, and there’s no hot cocoa or comedies playing and she really, truly feels like shit.

(He doesn’t notice.)

(That’s what hurts the most.)

The same day, she finds out about his girlfriend. She doesn’t have a name, because she doesn’t want to know who it is, only that she’s a flight attendant and with him on nearly every flight.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that’s who he’s been spending his lunch breaks with, or why he’s in such a rush to leave whenever he visits. Because now, he has someone he can talk to about this, someone who understands it better, someone who went through it with him.

(She can’t help but wonder if he makes hot cocoa for her, too.)

Sometimes, when she sees him in the uniform, or when he gets a fresh haircut, always the same one, she wonders what might’ve been. It’s not that she thought he was hers at any point – it’s more that it didn’t cross her mind that he might replace her with someone. Even when she did think of him in a relationship with someone, she never thought he’d cut things off between them.

It was a friendship. A partnership. You don’t cut those when you find a romantic partner.

Sometimes, when she has a bad day, she makes herself some hot cocoa, close her eyes, and imagine he’s here, with her. She knows exactly how he smells a little bit like sweat, like the machines they have in the cockpit and like whatever product he uses for washing his uniform – a cloudy, dreamy scent. She knows exactly running a hand through his short hair would feel, because she’s done it so many times when he’d have something in it that wind had blown over. Tiny hairs prickling her fingertips, but soft and smelling like a men’s shampoo, and thick.

(His hair would be curly if he grew it out.)

It’s not that she never wants to kiss him. Almost every time she’d see him leaning against her doorframe with that smirk of his, she’d have to battle the need to run her hands up his arms, touching the tiny hairs at the base of his neck or tracing his jawline with her lips.

When she’d give him the correct diagnosis of what’s wrong with his plane and he’d wear an expression that only slightly lets her know he’s proud of her, every single time, and she knows he’s watching her walk away, it would be difficult not to turn around and kiss him so hard she pushes him into the plane, showing him she’s better than him.

Now, it’s too late.

(She still wishes she could kiss him. Now, it’d be soft and gentle, and she’d trace his jawline with her fingers and take her time with kissing his lips before she moves on, because now that he’s gone, she appreciates the softness more.)

Raven sees him, sometimes. He never notices her or if he does, if she gets a wave it’s like she’s won an Oscar, if she gets a nod that’s a lot and most of the time, she doesn’t get anything. He’s just a passenger in her life, someone she sees every now and then, someone who used to mean a lot who now is an old story.

(He’s never going to be an old story for her.)

Usually, Raven isn’t so passive. With Finn, he always knew where they stood. Her friends always know what she thinks about them and everyone else. There’s no need for hiding, or sugarcoating.

Only with Zeke is when she can’t be straight with herself. Where she thinks hiding is better than being open. Where she’s too afraid she’ll lose everything to take the next step and admit both to herself and to him what’s happening.

It’s not until it’s been well over two months since they hung out together that he comes into her office again.

It feels a lot like all the previous visits at once, and not at all.

He looks older. His hair is a little bit longer and he’s holding the pilot’s hat in his hand, his shirt unbuttoned at the top and the shadow falls in a way it covers half of his face and for a moment, Raven feels like she doesn’t recognize him.

He’s like an apparition – behind him is a storm, dark clouds and wind sweeping pouring rain and it’s a contrast to how still he’s standing, right in the middle of the doorway, not even leaning against the doorframe. He’s not smirking, either, and Raven notices he’s dripping water.

He looks serious. She can’t tell when she’s last seen him serious.

“We flew into the eye of the storm,” he says, quietly. “We couldn’t evade it.”

Quietly as he said it, she rises from her chair and walks up to him, brushing water out of his eyes that’s sliding from his hair. Over his shoulder, she sees the plane, barely through the storm, and it looks like it’s gone through a battle.

She’s still standing right in front of him.

(She tries not to think about warm he feels, even from here. Or how he’s shaking, be it form the cold or something else.)

Raven closes the door and the sounds become muffled, the wind still howling outside. She walks past him and into the storage, where she finds a pair of his old sweatpants and a sweater he brought here a long time ago.

“They shouldn’t have made you fly through that.”

When she comes back into the room, he hasn’t moved, but his eyes follow her every move. “I know.”

She throws his clothes at him and he catches them. “Go take a shower and change. I’ll be back in ten.”

He doesn’t nod, or acknowledge her, really, but she knows he heard her, so she puts on her red jacket and closes the door behind her. She tries not to think about him, or why he’s here now for the first time, or what must’ve happened to him to come to her, or anything about him, really, because if he wants to tell her, he will.

(She prays to God she doesn’t believe in that he will.)

She gets his favourite food from the small fast food restaurant one of her friends works at and makes two cups of hot cocoa, one of each of them, and grabs some chips, too. It’s still chaos outside and she almost spills everything, but she makes it safely, albeit drenched in rain.

He’s waiting for her on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, with Brooklyn 99’s pilot episode playing.

“I got you something.”

Zeke smiles when she gives him the food and the cocoa and sits down beside him, but it’s not the smile she’s used to from him.

They watch together, sitting and not saying anything. She goes get herself a blanket at some point, and when they’re finished with their food and the cocoa she makes some more, and they eat chips and not say anything.

(She’s worried about him.)

“We almost died today,” Zeke says, quietly.

The episode is still playing and she pauses it, shifting on the couch so she’s positioned towards him. He stands still and continues looking at the television,  but she can see him thinking and his lips quivering and she knows he’s fiddling with his fingers.

She wants to know.

(But she would never, ever push him.)

“The turbulence was bad. We couldn’t land, there was nowhere to land. We kept telling everyone it was going to be okay, but my hands were shaking and we couldn’t contact anyone and I almost lost control over the plane.”

(She wants to reach over and tuck herself close to him.)

“We were losing altitude. We were falling. We were dying.”

(What hurts most is how he’s saying it. He’s detached, he’s played the story over and over in his head until it didn’t belong to him anymore.)

“And I kept thinking about how I haven’t spoken to you in so long. I should’ve been focused on saving those people, instead I kept seeing your face and the machines started overheating and I couldn’t think straight because I thought I would never see you again.”

(She wishes she could say it doesn’t hurt to hear him talk like this. This is not how she wanted things to go.)

“And I thought what you’d do in this situation. And I fix the machines. And I get us in control again. And everyone’s relaxed, but I’m not, because I can’t stop thinking what would’ve happened if we died. If I died.”

(He still doesn’t look at her.)

“I’ve been away from you this whole time and then ten thousand feet in the air, you save my life. You save a hunderd lives. And I can’t even think about my ex-girlfriend, who’s on the plane with me, because I keep thinking about you and I make a promise that I’ll never do that again.”

(She wonders what he’s talking about.)

He closes his eyes. He uncurls from the blanket and leans his head backwards, against the wall, and releases a shaky breath. His Adam’s apple is popping out and Raven feels as if she can hear his heart beating all the way to her.

He doesn’t look like the cocky guy she’s used to rivaling. He doesn’t look like the guy who challenged her to hack into the airport’s security network when they were testing the new protocols.

He looks like a man who’s seen his life flash before his eyes. He looks like a boy equally scared of death and of life. He looks like someone who thought he’s lost everything in a single fleeting moment.

“You’re okay,” she says.

(She doesn’t know what else to say. Her voice cracks, anyway.)

He says, “I’m sorry.”

She knows he is. “Me, too.”

They sit in silence. She watches him, and when he looks at her, she thinks he looks a little bit better than before.

“I’ll make more hot cocoa.”

She knows he’s watching her, even if her back is turned to him as she makes the drinks. Her hands are shaking and she can’t tell why, or doesn’t want to.

(She could’ve lost him and she didn’t even know.)

When she gives him the cup, their hands touch. Her fingers linger a moment too long, and when she goes back to her side of the couch, the distance between them seems ocean-sized.

Now, he’s looking at her. In his eyes, she sees fear.

He looks older.

Her fingers curl around her mug. It’s warm and she presses her lips against it, never letting her eyes wander off him.

( _‘Do you know I’m in love with you?’_ )

“Why did you stop coming here?”

_(‘Are you in love with me, too?’)_

“Because I was scared,” he says, still looking at her. His eyes pick up some intensity she’s unfamiliar with – it sends shivers down her spine. “Because I got a girlfriend and I wanted to spend time with her. Because I wanted her to be the one I can talk to about the shit that I go through.”

Raven closes her eyes. Takes a sip, letting it warm up the inside of her cheeks before swallowing it, the sweet taste lingering on her tongue. She opens her eyes and he’s not looking at her anymore. “That’s not the reason why you stop talking to a friend.”

He glances over, lazily, without a word, only their eyes locking.

The walls start closing in, because she knows exactly what he’s saying without saying. Because no words can describe the feeling. The raw, harsh intensity of trying to convey something that was never meant for words.

Something that was meant to be felt.

( _‘We weren’t just friends, were we?’_ )

For the first time in her life, Raven feels like she has nothing to say. She wonders if she should kiss him, but thinks it would be too much. This is not a situation that ends up with them making out.

It crosses her mind, again, the possibility of him having died today. A life without him.

She leans over and kisses him on the cheek.

He closes his eyes.

She says, “Do you know I’m in love with you?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. But he nods.

“Are you in love with me, too?”

He nods again. “That’s why I had to keep away from you.”

( _‘I wish I could believe you.’_ )

( _‘I wish I could.’_ )

She scoots over to him. He doesn’t move, so she pulls up his blanket and curls into his side, placing his arm around her and the blanket over both of them. Her head lies in the crook of his neck and he’s warm, but colder than he should be.

He doesn’t do anything for a few moments. Then his fingers start drawing circles on her arm, and he shifts his head so his jaw is on top of hers. He pulls her a little closer, and draws his other hand around her, and kisses the top of her head.

Something wet drips right where he kissed her.

( _‘Please don’t cry.’_ )

“I’m here,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He pulls her even closer.

She holds him while he cries, because this is where he feels safe – this is where both of them feel safe. In a small office, on a beat-down couch, drinking hot cocoa with one another with no one else to see them.

She wipes the tears from his face and kisses his cheek, and kisses him on the lips just to taste salt on them. And she runs a hand through his hair and plays with the hair at the base of his neck, and wipes his tears again, and tells him everything’s going to be all right.

(She doesn’t know if she believes it, but she has to. They both do.)

They fall asleep curled up and wake up sometime in the night. He’s looking at her and stroking her hair, with a sad smile on his face.

( _‘Please, don’t cry for me.’_ )

She can barely see him, in the dark. He’s warm and has his arms wrapped around her and she feels safer than ever, knowing that he’s here and not flying somewhere, not in danger of dying, not in danger of her living a life without him.

He kisses the top of her head. She’s still half asleep.

“I love you,” he whispers against her skin.

She whispers it against his neck, lips pressed right above the collarbone.

He holds her close that night, and every other to come.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed! if you have prompts/ ideas, send them in at @reivenreies on tumblr


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